Can you tell me more about those Taylor, Ragan and McGee Buildings in Union Hill? Are they condos? market-rate apartments? low-income housing? They're rather nice, and I'm impressed by the stately and traditional designs.

__________________"Also, to be frank, I like dense cities best and care about them most." from The Death And Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs.

Can you tell me more about those Taylor, Ragan and McGee Buildings in Union Hill? Are they condos? market-rate apartments? low-income housing? They're rather nice, and I'm impressed by the stately and traditional designs.

They are market-rate apartments, all built by developer Bob Frye.
He's been slowly developing the Union Hill neighborhood since 1987. Redeveloping vacant lots, I should say, as the neighborhood has a small but nice collection of historic Victorian homes not seen in many other parts of town. This is the final phase which includes 181-units in five buildings, plus 13 single family homes. The stone-clad Taylor, Ragan, and a similar under-construction Campbell building are 23 units each, ranging in rent from $1,245 to $1,995 a month (1BR & 2BRs). These are apparently modeled after apartments in Chicago's Lincoln Park. The brick McGee building and another soon to start construction McCoy building are 56-units each ranging in rent from $850 to $1,810 monthly (studio, 1BR & 2BRs).

"Downtown Kansas City scored a triple play Thursday when two apartment projects totaling more than 300 units won incentives necessary to begin work and a plan to double the size of the Crossroads Academy charter school was approved.

The larger of the two apartment proposals is the biggest residential project to date in the West Bottoms area, a 251-unit redevelopment that includes a historic building at 933 Mulberry St. The smaller project is a new 56-unit building in the River Market area.

The Planned Industrial Expansion Authority granted the Reeder Family Trust a 15-year abatement for its project called The View at the West Bottom II.

The $30 million redevelopment plan calls for renovating the nine-story building on Mulberry Street into 189 apartments and two nearby smaller buildings at 1200 and 1218 Union St. into 62 apartments. The abatement is for 95 percent of the new value for 10 years and 50 percent for five."

Rendering from KC Star and photos from loopnet.com

Great development posts!! Many of these projects I'm familiar with since I deliver all over the city, but there are several on here I had no idea that are being constructed. This project above, I had no clue about. It's great that perhaps this building will get the ball rolling to transform the West Bottoms into a viable community. The proposal to build a condo next to the Cold Storage lofts in the River Market was a surprise also.

Any word on when we might see a convention center hotel? It's sad that 20 years later after the Bartle Hall expansion, we have nothing on the boards. It's great that we keep building smaller ones, and renovated Crown Park, Muelbach, and the new Marriott is about to break ground, but it's still not enough, and it's frustrating to see us lose potential conventions to other cities due to the lack of hotel rooms!!

Work is progressing on the 25-story, 315-unit, $79 million One Light tower downtown. 30% fully leased, ~1,500 people signed up on the waiting list. Tenant move-ins anticipated to begin by the end of November.

Looks like KC will be getting an 800-room Hyatt hotel project that will make a significant impact on the skyline as viewed from the south. The hotel will include 75,000 square feet of meeting, banquet and pre-convention space; 15,450 square feet of retail, restaurant and bar space; a 9,913-square-foot recreational facility; and structured parking with 450-500 spaces.

The site is immediately NE of the Performing Arts Center and adjacent to the convention center ballroom, one block away from a streetcar station and a two block walk from the Power & Light entertainment district. There is already a 261-room Marriott project under construction across the street from this site, and with this announcement, that means there are 7 hotel projects in progress in downtown KC.

A local developer has released renderings for a proposed 25-floor class A office tower for a surface parking lot directly north of the Sprint Center arena. The developer has said that the building will not be speculative, so they are just marketing the site in hopes to land a major tenant at this point. Exciting, nonetheless, since job growth and reduced office vacancy downtown has ushered in smaller new office projects and hopefully larger ones like this are not far behind!